That in a Southern land,
Lonely and silent standeth
Amid the drifting sand.”
There was passion, protest, longing in the music, and the refrain died away and came again like the sobs of a broken heart.
Richard bent over her and looked into her eyes, dark with unshed tears. His voice trembled as he whispered,—
“I am so sorry for you.”
She arose and stood before him, a peculiar smile on her face.
“Isn’t it hard,” she said, “to distinguish between the real and the unreal? When we go together into the unknown land, we seem to have been friends for ages piled on ages. Then we come back to reality, and I sit down here and we talk about the weather. And that of course is much better. It is, you know, bad form—oh, how weary I am of the phrase—for you to tell me that you’re sorry for me.”
Richard leaned against the piano and looked down at her thoughtfully.
“Yes—and absurd. Why should I be sorry for you? Suppose, for instance—and of course it is not a possibility—that I should tell my cynical friend Fenton, of whom I want to talk to you sometime, that I had met a woman young, beautiful, wealthy, courted by society, wonderfully accomplished, a musician possessing genius, a soul sensitive to all that is noble and beautiful in life, and that I had expressed to her my commiseration. What would he say?”